Friday, 27 November 2009

We help run a research project in partnership with the DfT, Ideas in Transit; applying user innovation to the transport challenges faced by individuals and society.

Ideas in Transit has been supporting the import of the UK’s official database of 360,000 bus stops and other public transport access points (NaPTAN) into OpenStreetMap over the past year. Data for Birmingham was imported in March 2009, followed by Greater London, Suffolk and Kingston-upon-Hull in August 2009 and subsequently a further 51 authorities.

We would like to highlight the great work done in the OSM community by Thomas Wood, Christoph Böhme and Chris Hill. Thomas Wood is responsible for importing the data into OpenStreetMap, Christoph created the NOVAM viewer which allows mappers to check if an imported bus stop has been surveyed:

Lastly, I hear word that Chris Hill has been surveying Hull and talking to Hull City Council's transport team about how to feedback the crowdsourced improvements from OSM back to the NaPTAN dataset.

This is a wonderful example of how Public Sector Bodies can open up their data and engage with communities, for mutual benefit. Local transport users get better personalised transport information from services using OpenStreetMap data, and Local Authorities can receive crowdsourced improvements to their data.

This initiative would not have been possible without the support of Transport Direct and National Traveline who offered the release of the NaPTAN dataset. Ideas in Transit will continue to support the project over the coming years with support from the Technology Strategy Board, the Department for Transport and the EPSRC.